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2 Welcome The Scientific Community anticipates and crafts the Atos vision of the major trends and future business challenges that will be faced by our customers; and considers how these will be addressed by emerging disruptive technologies. By making this vision available to our clients and by investing in areas related to the findings, we seek to help our clients make informed decisions on the future of their Business Technology solutions. In 2010, the Scientific Community published Journey 2014: Simplicity with Control, presenting a five year view of key challenges for the ICT industry. This was updated in 2012 in Ascent Journey 2016: Enterprise without Boundaries. Building upon the original Journey 2014 thesis, this addressed the increasing pace of change with a new set of major trends and challenges. Now, we publish Ascent Journey 2018: The 3 rd Digital Revolution Agility and Fragility in which the pace of change continues to accelerate. The lifecycle of data is now at the heart of the digital transformation of both business and society. How data is created, transported, analyzed and acted upon represents both opportunity and threat. Those that are first to grasp its relevance will be the winners in the new data economy. Editorial Board Ascent Journey 2018 Contents 02 Welcome 03 Foreword 04 Our Vision 07 The Interplay of Mega-trends 10 Agility and Fragility 12 Digital Transformation: The Business Challenge 13 Landing the Vision 14 Business Drivers of the 3 rd Digital Revolution 15 Technology Enablers of the 3 rd Digital Revolution 16 Realization Challenges of the 3 rd Digital Revolution 17 Conclusion 20 Business Drivers 20 Economy of Data 22 Connected Consumer 24 Innovation Value Webs 26 Industry Technology Enablers 28 Future Networks 30 Internet of Everything 32 Cloud Service Integration 34 Web-Scale Computing 38 Realization Challenges 36 Digital Security 38 Privacy and Personal Data Protection 40 Analytics and Visualization 42 New Media 44 Semantic Technologies 46 About the Scientific Community Published in January Acknowledgements 2

3 Foreword In Ascent Journey 2018 you will find insights from our experts and our view on the way technology can be used today to be ready for Thierry Breton, Chairman and CEO, Atos Welcome to Ascent Journey 2018, a unique analysis from the Atos Scientific Community, where we present our vision and anticipate the technology shifts that will shape business through 2018 The 21 st century will be the century of Data the new resource to boost the economy, as Finance was in the previous century. Gathering and using data will transform our lives whether we are at home, traveling, shopping or even receiving healthcare. It will help us to control our energy spending, allow industry to use equipment more efficiently and offer greater flexibility in manufacturing. Ascent Journey 2018 is the result of extensive research started in 2009 and conducted by our 100 top scientists from the Atos Scientific Community led by Hubert Tardieu. It focuses on data at the core of the 3 rd Digital Revolution. After Simplicity with Control in Journey 2014 and Enterprise without Boundaries in Ascent Journey 2016, the Scientific Community has identified Agility and Fragility to illustrate the dilemma of an unprecedented technical disruption which needs to fit in our society to trigger growth. Several of our major customers have agreed to share their vision with us, including the International Olympic Committee with Agenda Shell have also shared their IT Vision with us as part of our Strategic Relationship. With Siemens we have launched several large R&D projects on remote service and Industrial Data Analytics/Smart Data to accelerate our progress in solving the key technological challenges you will find in Ascent Journey After 5 years we have seen the vision of our Scientific Community gaining traction in numerous domains such as Connected Living, Cloud, Mobility, Big Data and Enterprise Social Networking. In Ascent Journey 2018 you will find insights from our experts and our view on the way technology can be used today to be ready for tomorrow. I m sure you will find this the ideal guide to better understand the business challenges we have in front of us and be prepared for a changed world in

4 Our Vision Looking ahead to 2018 to a world with an estimated 4.5 billion smartphones, 2.5 billion users of social networks and more than 25 billion connected objects we anticipate a new digital revolution which we refer to as The 3 rd Digital Revolution. This comes from the convergence of two seemingly different development cycles the capability to represent information and the technology to compute that information. The three Revolutions in Information Representation ``Around 3200 BC Sumerians invented the first form of writing (cuneiform script) to help keep track of animals and other goods. Writing was performed by the chief official of the temple the Sangu or accountant in contemporary language. This first form of information representation and sharing was created by few people for few people. ``The invention of the movable type printing press in China, Korea and Europe between the 11 th and 15 th centuries was initially used primarily for producing religious books. This second form of information representation allowed few documents (especially in its early days) to be distributed to many readers. ``Now, in the 21 st Century, ubiquitous connectivity, social networks and associated technologies allow each of us to both create and consume digital information (through short messages, images and videos), distributing it almost instantaneously to a global audience, if desired. This third digital age is characterized by a many to many model. In addition, each of us is now an implicit generator of data, as a result of using digital services and interacting with connected objects. It is clear that this 3rd Digital Revolution offers us a speed and agility of innovation and development never before possible, but at what price does it come? Will innovations enable managed growth or will they disrupt existing business models to such an extent that established economies will suffer? Will the application of technology developments serve as a unifying force or one that drives further segregation in the world? In our opinion the 3rd Digital Revolution seems to be a doubleedged sword bringing both Agility and Fragility. Looking at the impact technology will have, we need to understand the driving forces and interplays between these competing forces and consider the choices and respective consequences we face. 3G 4G WIFI Sumerians 3200 B.C. Gutenberg et al. 11 th -15 th century IT & Telco Industry Today Cuneiform Script Type Printing Press Digital Information & Ubiquitous Connectivity 2018 Few authors producing small quantities of information for the privileged few. Few authors producing relatively small quantities of information for a large readership. A many to many model each of us has potential to be authors and consumers of information. Even connected objects now tell a story. 4.5 billion smartphones 25 billion connected objects Figure 1. The three Revolutions in Information Representation Atos

5 The three Revolutions in Computing Technology ``A cycle began in the early 1940s with the creation of the electronic digital computer. Early uses focused on improving accounting tasks (the same motivation that drove the early Sumerians), but Information Technology (IT) has evolved to now facilitate all manner of task automation. ``The second significant stage of the digital computing cycle appears in the 1990s with the world wide web, which enables almost instant access to information previously only available in printed format. However, whilst early usage of the web enabled an unprecedented and rapidly growing means of sharing information, it did not dramatically change the nature of the content held and the usage and processes applied to that content. ``Now Cloud, Big Data, Mobility and Social Media, connected by ever faster and more available broadband networks, are radically and rapidly transforming the way we, as humans, communicate, connect and consume; impacting many areas of daily life private and work. Even from a nonhuman perspective, machine to machine communication (M2M) and the Internet of Everything are generating data which can be enriched to allow marketable services. This transformation constitutes the 3 rd Digital Revolution, where possibilities are seemingly only limited by our capacity to imagine new application use cases. 1940s 1990s Today: The 3 rd Digital Revolution Electronic Digital Computer World Wide Web Internet of Everything Improvement of accounting tasks, mainly using a printed format. Instant access to information, on screen. More interactions from anywhere, at anytime More understanding and knowledge of our reality Mobility & Internet of Things Big Data Social Networks Cloud Computing More roles for any connected individual More power on demand for computing Figure 2. The three Revolutions in Computing Technology 2015 Atos Questions and Promises In Ascent Journey 2016 Enterprise without Boundaries, four mega-trends were identified that are shaping the numerous and apparently disconnected or chaotic changes taking place at a global level: Demographics, Globalization, Economic Sustainability and Trust. These mega-trends continue to provide a solid framework for the early identification of the underlying trends that are impacting society, economics and business, both now and in the near future. Since those four mega-trends were identified, global events and developments continue to demonstrate the interplays between them. These interplays are giving rise to additional forces of change that have been building to maturity during the last 2 or 3 years and are now triggering a rapid cycle of change that places us at something of a tipping point which raises a crucial questions for both business and society: Have we entered a period of secular stagnation or are we in a phase of Schumpeterian creative destruction? Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley. Theodore Roethke, Poet Secular stagnation is a concept first proposed by Alvin Hansen in the 1930s and promoted today by Prof. Robert J. Gordon. It suggests that the major innovations which have driven growth in the 20 th century (electricity, planes, highways, computers etc.) do not have any significant equivalents in the 21 st century. As an example You promised me Mars colonies. Instead I got Facebook 1. Schumpeterian creative destruction postulates that Capitalist economic development arises out of the destruction of some prior economic order 2. The agility and fragility seen in the 3 rd Digital Revolution may be a natural outworking of the creative and destructive balance that is part of normal economic innovation and business cycles. The question is: How will the different forces at work counteract or exacerbate each other over the next 3 to 5 years?

6 Our Vision To understand better why we may be approaching a phase of fundamental disruption, an up-to-date view on the megatrends and their interplays is required. The Globalization mega-trend shows that the world s center of gravity is clearly shifting towards the Asia-Pacific area for economic growth and to Africa for demographic growth, from a previous position that was firmly anchored in the West (US and Europe). From a Trust perspective, the Snowden disclosures (starting in June 2013) have provided evidence that citizens might fundamentally reject the natural outworking of a digital society. This will especially be the case if clear contracts, built on Trust, are not established for the use and monetization of personal data and if no effective enforcement can be brought to bear against infringements of privacy. Considering the Sustainability angle, it appears that energy shortages may not be effectively offset by exploiting new forms of gas and oil, which are now seen as less abundant and more environmentally damaging than previously considered. The political and governance aspects of renewable energies, as well as the cost and privacy considerations of smart meter deployments, have also temporarily hindered the establishment of a new energy landscape. Then there is an apparent increase in natural and man-made disasters with far-reaching economic, environmental and health consequences. These and other perceived risks or threats lead some to a sense of paralysis until certainty arrives; for others pessimism stifles future ambition as they yearn for the good old days. Despite certain negative perspectives, the reality is that very big and powerful changes are taking place which inevitably create exciting opportunities for growth: Significant segments of the world s population are experiencing an increase in income and quality of life; individuals and businesses are more connected than ever; the truly digital world is emerging in both private and professional life. Advances in machines that enable them to work more autonomously along with the emergence of new technologies and materials, have yet to realize even a fraction of their promised potential e.g. 3D/4D printing, Internet of Things and graphene, just to name a few. We are convinced that 2014 to 2018 will be a vital period for business to embark purposefully on Digital Transformation, to increase, secure and consolidate growth. Those that miss this boat, by ignoring it, observing from the side-lines or merely paying lip service to the trends of change, will find themselves in a very difficult position by Business environment Globalization Economic Sustainability Business environment Business Technical Building Blocks C h a ll e n ge s Challenges Business environment Demographics Trust Business environment 2015 Atos Figure 3. The Model for Ascent Journey

7 The Interplay of Mega-trends Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn t go away. Philip K. Dick, Writer and Philosopher Whilst there is a continued influence of the mega-trends individually, perhaps the most dramatic effects are experienced when they interact with each other, giving rise to compound and complex intersections and interplays. The next sections provide a theoretical and non-exhaustive analysis of possible trends that originate from combinations of the four mega-trends. They focus on actual business and societal trends that have shown up in the last few years, or are currently emerging. Awareness and understanding of these trends help us to make forecasts and predictions that guide business strategy in a sustainable way. However, the task is not straightforward: in a complex and highly interconnected world, simple cause-effect relationships no longer apply, and small changes in one element can unexpectedly trigger major effects in others. Demographics and Economic Sustainability Considering shifting Demographics, we observe the continuing trend for populations to be concentrated in very large cities (70% by 2030). In areas of traditionally low-income, population is growing significantly (Africa s population is predicted by the Population Reference Bureau to double by ), with increases at both ends of the age spectrum driven by higher birth rates and life expectancy. Certain segments of population (particularly the middle class) are enjoying a growth in income and quality of life, coupled with a growing recognition of the importance of environmental sustainability. These positive changes present the challenge of whether the economies of the countries in question can sustain the predicted rate of change. At least part of the answer lies in investment in widespread education and the nurturing of talent through bringing technology to the people. Do this successfully and these emerging countries will be an economic force to be reckoned with. Demographics Trust Economic Sustainability Globalization In contrast, the old world is experiencing a decrease in both the size of the youth segment and the incomes of the middle classes. Talent scarcity continues to rise, with 3 million jobs standing vacant in Europe and a 20 million gap expected in China by Such scarcity will inevitably lead to increased international mobility (virtual and physical) to help reset the economic balance. 3 7

8 Our Vision Ever increasing life expectancy is creating an ageing population, where the cost pressures on healthcare and welfare pensions are outweighing the ability of the tax system to pay. Digital Natives have entered the workplace, bringing with them markedly different behaviors and expectations this is a catalyst for positive cultural, process and technology transformations in private and public sector organizations. As consumers, the digital natives are techsavvy and demand richer connection and engagement not only via new technologies, but through seamless, personalized experiences across virtual and physical channels. Whilst such requirements are not the sole preserve of the Digital Native, the impact of these trends (with local variations) is likely to be felt most strongly in areas where younger population segments are booming. The recent economic upturn seems to be happening without significant job creation. This symptom is linked to increased automation, advanced robotics and even autonomous vehicles. It fuels a growing controversy about the end of labour, with machines replacing humans, resulting in further social inequalities between the haves and the have nots. Perhaps the emerging challenge is no longer that of wealth creation but of wealth distribution. The status of homo consumens that has emerged during the last five or six decades is increasingly being complemented by our role as creators (prosumers), financers (crowd funding) or micro-manufacturers (3D printing). With today s technology, small groups of people with an idea and a vision, can collaborate remotely to create and deliver a service or product (taking advantage of social, mobile and Cloud Technologies), based on new business models, with modest funding (partially or totally obtained by new financing tools) and deploy it virally, posing a very serious risk to the long-established portfolio of existing business giants. But defensive behaviors continue with innovative start-ups being aggressively bought up by the big players, which could do more to stifle further innovation than encourage it. Globalization and Economic Sustainability Local economic and political crises have an ever increasing global impact. Although the green shoots of economic recovery are appearing, they remain fragile as public and private debt continues to rise in many quarters, despite all the austerity measures. In the new global environment, tough questions are being asked about the validity of old economic models: Are historical welfare, labor, education and health systems still valid? Do they satisfy the demands of the new digital generation? How can long term global strategies be aligned to the rapidly changing demands of citizens and consumers? Add to this the concerns and question marks over global food supply and distribution, forecasted energy shortages and the seemingly continuous series of natural and man-made disasters. There are already economists who no longer see growth or profit/revenue as the best economic outcome or target for companies. Instead, creation of a circular economy that demonstrates responsibility towards future generations and puts sustainability first, could become more important than today s relentless demand for profit and shareholder value. Globalization is here to stay human activities (work, business, economics, education, entertainment, collaboration) have reached such a degree of connectivity, immediacy and interdependence that it is difficult to see how these could be rewound. People communicate, collaborate and do business remotely with increasing ease, speed and effectiveness applied appropriately these capabilities can certainly support a more sustainable global economy. But the differences between old world and emerging economies cannot be ignored. Old world economies face the challenges of private and public debt reduction and the deflationary iceberg, intensifying the need to create high value-added services via innovation. Emerging countries often find themselves in a significantly different situation: Unburdened by legacy infrastructures (both business and technology), they are able to exploit the benefits of the 3 rd Digital Revolution to develop more quickly and effectively, gaining momentum in the global economy. From the consumer point of view, given the high levels of private debt in most Western countries and the flat or decreasing purchasing power of the population (with a marked polarization between high earners and the rest), we will probably experience a low-cost era, where good enough features and lean approaches come to the fore. Because wealth and possessions are unequally divided, one option is to share what we have: The rise of the sharing or peer to peer economy is already apparent. Skills and talents, a drilling machine, clothes, a lawn mower, surplus food: All of these are sharable assets to which a value can be assigned and there is an increase in websites and mobile apps that makes this type of bartering possible on a large or even global scale. What is absolutely clear is that we are rapidly moving to a world where As a Service will increasingly be the standard business model. Capex investment will become the sole preserve of core service providers or even independent capital equipment financers. Consumers (both businesses and individuals) will procure services based on demand and outcomes. Already we see examples like those of key aircraft components being sold to airlines on an operational hours basis or car sharing schemes offering pay per mile driving. During 2014, just two music albums have gone platinum (more than one million sales) at the time of writing in early November. On demand streaming services like Spotify give consumers exactly the mix of music they want when they want it and at a price less than a whole album. Trust and Globalization Security and Privacy have been critical topics for some time, and will remain increasingly so 4. Any relationship (e.g. between individuals, communities, public and private organizations, governments) can be impacted, both positively and negatively, by the actual and perceived levels of security and privacy associated with the relationship. Consider the effect and implications of the Heartbleed bug, which exposed an estimated 17% of the world s web servers to potential buffer over read attacks, resulting in frantic exchanges of warnings and lists of affected websites. There has been widespread adverse reaction to the perceived misuse of governmental monitoring capabilities. The phenomenon of states spying on organizations and individuals has become global and is heavily influenced by economic warfare in the context of globalization and global competition. Governments that should be establishing trust through legal standards, are putting the relationship between the state and the individual under strain. The perceived loss of individual influence grows further as the rise of mega-companies continues. Their sheer size and economic power puts them in a position of being able to influence national policy to their advantage, whilst at the same time exploiting the boundaries of local regulations and laws to avoid taxation or other perceived business constraints. Demographics Trust Economic Sustainability Globalization 4 E.g. see Risk and Responsibility in a Hyperconnected World, in 8

9 Political inability to establish international legal frameworks on e.g. privacy or taxation, is being opposed by grass root initiatives of citizens, supported by social networks and leveraging their role as consumers able to make informed choices. Trust and Economic Sustainability Maintaining trust is key to managing many potential risks in the new digital world, as well as fulfilling many of its promises. Open source, open data, open innovation and open standards are good examples of sound and business-ready work growing out of communities based on Trust. But trust can be badly damaged across societies and business sectors where misuse of technology or fundamentally flawed risk management is exposed. As technology is profoundly changing business, there is a growing expectation in society that changes are implemented in a sustainable and responsible way. Corporate Social Responsibility is evolving from selfregulation with focus on improving brand reputation, to the recognition that business profit carries with it a responsibility towards society beyond mere corporate philanthropy or local community programs. The principle of shared value connects the success of companies with social progress: In contrast to conventional, market-driven innovation, social innovation incorporates societal needs and sustainable trends to help solve the challenges of future generations. We see companies moving towards a social innovation approach that is collaborative and participatory. When combined with the 3 rd Digital Revolution we see an historic opportunity to better align business, government and civil society interests as combined forces for good governance, global stability and security, social inclusion and economic prosperity. Trust and Demographics We observe some interesting differences in the attitudes to Trust across different demographics. For digital natives, openness is usually not seen as a threat: Extensive social media interactions across communities that barely know each other in the physical world are the accepted norm; and open innovation, sharing of ideas and joining of forces in a trusted way, all come naturally. New ways of Social-Network enabled grass-root lobbying against established power structures helps to fuel social innovation a phenomenon that impacts both governments (see Turkey, the Arab Spring or the Occupy movements) and large enterprises. If taken seriously, social innovation can create greater intimacy between organizations and individuals, leading to new forms of brand management. The older generations tend to be more conservative in their attitude to privacy and trust, they often prefer engagement models that have reasonably well defined boundaries of interaction and risk. Demographics and Globalization It is useful to view the interplay between Demographics and Globalization in light of the paradoxical talent deficit described earlier and consider whether more accessible education, coupled with increased mobility or increased teleworking, could solve the problem. The first waves of offshoring at any rate helped move innovation to some emerging countries, but sometimes failed to produce the expected results. Production localization is being re-examined in certain cases, with nearshoring and on-shoring being applied. An interesting question is whether the reskilling necessary will tend to result in a bias towards jobs for certain demographics. The jobs of the future are not the same as the jobs of the past, with new opportunities arising from emerging digital economic models and the required skills being sourced on a more fragmented basis. Achieving sustainable growth requires taking full advantage of the enormous possibilities that new technologies offer as creators and catalysts for business. It also requires sensible approaches from a societal, political and corporate point of view that avoid scenarios in which the misguided or poorly governed use of technology creates a social backlash against the very technologies that are the key to growth. 9

10 Our Vision Agility and Fragility I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act. G.K. Chesterton, Writer and Philosopher Even as the digital world continues to emerge and increasingly becomes the new norm, the new business models, processes and value paradigms it gives rise to, are potentially delicate, particularly as they are changing so quickly: They are in their infancy and lack mature and robust operating models; they sometimes sit uncomfortably alongside more traditional approaches; adoption and acceptance rates vary, bringing tensions to certain markets. There may even be some cases where old models have to die first before the new approaches can realize their full potential. There is a big question mark over how comfortably the digital models can operate alongside the old models. But the simple fact of being aware of these vulnerabilities gives the opportunity to anticipate, shape and nurture the new model. What is very evident is that do nothing is not an option. Forward thinking businesses and governing bodies have the opportunity to shape the character and values of the new digital world, embracing the potential and agility it offers, whilst seeking to protect it and themselves from factors that would expose its fragility. The fragile infant, if properly nurtured will soon grow to full strength. As has been previously mentioned there is a balance between the various forces at play some bring characteristics of agility to the digital world, others present challenges of fragility. Each one influences different market segments or individual organizations to varying extents. Businesses need to understand how to tip the balance in their favor to secure future sustainable success. It is impossible to cover all the factors at play within this document. However, Table 1 offers a few pointers to the challenges resulting from the 3 rd Digital Revolution and the associated counterbalance of Fragility and Agility. How to use the table A number of 3 rd Digital Revolution Challenges have been identified in the left column of the table. For each, the corresponding potential Agility enablers and Fragility constraints are considered. Where relevant, the Trends giving rise to the challenges and the Ascent Journey 2018 Tracks that help inform understanding of how they can be addressed are highlighted. The intent is not to provide a definitive list but examples to illustrate the implications of Agility and Fragility on the 3 rd Digital Revolution. 10

11 3 rd Digital Revolution Challenges Innovation stifled by the principle of precaution and concerns over Data Security & Privacy. Effective policies to support wealth distribution and Economic Sustainability. M2M connectivity and the Internet of Everything enable new services, but without the need for corresponding human support roles. Need for better Intellectual Property (IP) related regulation (especially for multi-party IP). Enriched personalized experiences demand a balance between individual choice, regulatory compliance and Trust. Internet of Everything and New Media consumption & interaction breaks down traditional IT security boundaries for ubiquitous digital services. Escalating national and personal debt. Immaturity of services such as P2P lending, crypto and other currencies. Expectation of IT services for free. Where is value perceived and added? Maintaining acceptable standards and coverage of public services, irrespective of who provides them. Building capability and capacity in key technologies (for example Analytics & Visualization) coupled with deep and fast changes in organizational culture and structure. Modernization of energy sector technology and culture. Coordinated and consistent policies are required in the face of Globalization. Provision of trusted Cloud Services with guaranteed levels of Data Security & Privacy and regulatory compliance. Agility Digital natives encourage an Open Innovation mind-set. Connected Consumer enables data share opt-in. Wealth creation from digital business models can be significantly greater than traditional ones. Economy of Data helps drive Small/ Medium Enterprise (SME) ecosystems. New digital services may enable further higher value-added services that foster the creation of new jobs e.g. Industry 4.0. Decreasing barriers for collaboration through Open Innovation based on Trust. New value streams generated from Connected Consumer context seen as acceptable trade-off for personal data sharing. Future Network technology with adaptive security enables proactive protection. Regulation and Government policies help to protect the Economy of Data. Crowd funding and micro funding circumvents the inflexibility of established finance mechanisms. Analytics & Visualization improves awareness and confidence in public and private finances. Semantics and New Media drive the growth of Prosumerism, improving value perception and fueling the Economy of Data. Emerging delivery models that allow citizens greater control of public services e.g. healthcare, education. Grow fast, learn fast, flatter, more agile organizations with a tolerance to experimentation, useful failure and Open Innovation. Smart energy grids and micro power generation, supported by Analytics and Visualization. Effective Cloud Service provision through Web-Scale Computing and Cloud Service Integration aligned to business needs and sovereignty requirements. Fragility Attitude differences across different Demographics constrain innovation. Growing divide between rich and poor across Demographics and in a Globalization context. Economic recovery without job creation. Jobs of tomorrow skills deficit. IP exploitation impacts the Economic Sustainability of R&D. Concerns over Data Security & Privacy and inappropriate use of personal data. Dramatic increase in cybercrime and security leaks compromises Trust.Concerns over government attitudes to Digital Security & Privacy. Lack of consumer confidence in new Economy of Data; inadequate government policies and sub-optimal investment in emerging technologies all impact Economic Sustainability. Consumer commitments imposed by service providers may exceed the perceived value delivered, leading to collapse of some digital service models. Key public sector services become financially unsustainable. Likely impact on more vulnerable Demographics. Increasingly fast cycle of fad services and products without long term digital transformation. Focus on the short-term, leading to unsustainable results. Energy demands exceed supply capacity, constraining economic growth. Data sovereignty concerns and constraints. Table 1. The 3 rd Digital Revolution Agility and Fragility. Terms in bold blue refer to mega-trends, terms in bold black refer to Journey 2018 chapters. 11

12 Our Vision Digital Transformation: The Business Challenge Experience is comforting, but it tends to drive you out of the new. Carlos Barrabés, e-commerce Pioneer All the changes and shifts explored earlier are exposing organizations to strong and sometimes opposing forces. At a macro level, in order to gain breadth (reach, firm positioning and efficiency), the trend has traditionally been towards global strategy, recentralization and economies of scale. At a micro level, in order to gain depth (product differentiation, niche markets and effectiveness), the drive is towards fragmentation, specialization and personalization. In the fast moving, connected digital world, the focus of business transformation will increasingly shift towards the front office and the task of enriching customer experience. Organizations need to engage with customers more intimately and individually than ever before through processes that exhibit realtime flexibility and a richness of integration that delivers truly end to end customer experiences. The seemingly opposing forces of maximizing process efficiency and personalizing user experience present a complex business challenge. Whilst most organizations and businesses do not need to fully master both forces simultaneously in order to succeed, they must understand how to make them work together rather than against each other. The value and potential of enriching customer experience will only be fully realized when core business operations within increasingly disaggregated supply chains are aligned and optimized for both business-to-business AND business-toconsumer interactions. For any organization, becoming truly digital requires a different mindset, increased flexibility, abandoning the obsession for the very short term. It requires a redefinition of corporate structures, bodies and roles to make innovation happen as a matter of course. As businesses strive to master this complexity, we foresee the fragmentation and outsourcing of business processes, which must then be properly orchestrated. The new digital world will see highly efficient back-office process elements triggered by real-time integration with flexible, personalized customer interaction solutions. The challenge of process complexity and opposing forces will be overcome by more and improved standardization of granular business processes and technology interfaces that enable seamless and dynamic construction of end to end capabilities, delivered by otherwise disparate entities the best of both worlds! 12

14 Landing the Vision Business Drivers of the 3 rd Digital Revolution With a properly connected network of billions of devices and users, the 3 rd Digital Revolution will be fueled by the new black gold that is data, collected and exchanged as part of a whole new Economy of Data. Exciting new business opportunities will emerge, provided that multi-sided markets 5 are organized to monetize data appropriately. However, profitability can only occur if business partners, leveraging data generated by new services (with the consent of users), are willing to finance the necessary investments to establish the operational and commercial frameworks. Connected Consumer refers to customer interaction in an environment where the digital experience seamlessly fuses with the physical world of delivery and payment. An important consideration is that connected consumers seem ready and willing to trade access to their personal data for better and cheaper services, provided that personal data usage is limited to the purposes intended and guaranteed by trusted third parties. The speed of benefit realization from the 3 rd Digital Revolution will, in no small measure, be driven by the ability to adopt Innovation Value Webs to facilitate open innovation both within the social enterprise and beyond its borders. Organizations failing to embrace social collaboration face being constrained in the digital adaption of their processes and in the understanding of their customers behavior. Collaboration among communities with a clear and common purpose, represents the best vehicle for bootstrapping innovation. Industry 4.0 (aka Smart Manufacturing) reflects the manufacturing incarnation of a digital mind-set, leveraging contextaware computing and Big Data to increase productivity and maintain competitive advantages, whilst at the same time allowing more flexibility in the manufacturing process. Industry 4.0 includes concepts such as digitizing the Supply Chain and 3D Printing to extend the boundaries of Product Lifecycle Management and IT/OT convergence. Industry 4.0 challenges the traditional front office/ back office separation by allowing optimized processes in a flexible demand cycle that flows between the two. Whilst these four topics are far from an exhaustive list of the business drivers to be experienced on the Journey to 2018, they are representative of the interconnected and interdependant elements of the 3 rd Digital Revolution. The Connected Consumer clearly reflects the revolution within the Business-to-Consumer world where personalized, immediate and informed interactions with customers become the expected norm. However, the creation of processes and infrastructure to provide such capability is likely to be fueled through an Economy of Data that relies on the two-way monetization of data generated by Connected Consumer interactions and shared with selected business partners. Industry 4.0 reflects the Business-to-Business dimension where supply chain disaggregation and multi-partner integration occur simultaneously. The principle of innovation value webs facilitates business to business cooperation within and between companies; and also opens up new social network channels to capture consumer feedback which can be used to drive further innovation in products and services. 5 Multi-sided markets, first discussed in Ascent Journey 2016, promote interactions with consumers, by involving two or more sides in the provision of a product or service, such that the proposition only becomes viable with the involvement of all parties. The concept was used by Jean Tirole winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences to explain behavior in credit card markets. 14

15 Technology Enablers of the 3 rd Digital Revolution The complexity and diversity represented by the sheer volume of connected objects, smartphones and tablets, added to the ever expanding social networking community, raises unprecedented technical and economic questions. As they are addressed, the resulting accessibility, connectivity and functionality are undoubtedly the foundation and catalyst of the 3 rd Digital Revolution. The Internet of Everything is an ubiquitous communication network of everything: People, processes, locations and the so called Internet of Things that enables capturing and effective management of data from billions of objects (both active and passive). The impact on quality of life of connecting everything to everything (with use cases including healthcare, retail, city management, etc.) will be measured in terms of the value add services that are enabled, but this has to be tempered by considerations of individual privacy. Wearable computing has the potential to become a fully integrated part of our private and professional lives, with improved gesture-based control and augmented reality experiences as well as the use of contextual data to support user services. Future Networks to provide connectivity and energy supply / distribution to power devices will be the key enablers for connected objects to deliver sensor data. Software-Defined Networks and New Media Content Delivery Networks need to ensure optimal use of scarce bandwidth. Ubiquitous wireless data and power are prerequisites for realizing the potential of the Internet of Everything. Services for the 3 rd Digital Revolution are increasingly delivered through the Cloud: Either by reusing legacy applications through resource virtualization and Cloud Service Integration to enable entire application ecosystems to communicate and interact with each other across public and private Clouds, or through building and deploying new applications that fully benefit from Web-Scale Computing for very large scale delivery at the lowest possible cost. 15

16 Landing the Vision Applying new technologies to the business drivers of the 3 rd Digital Revolution presents difficult challenges. Benefits realization from solving these challenges is inevitably compromised if organizations and consumers consider that their Data Security and Privacy are unreasonably compromised as a consequence of embracing new digital services and processes. However, the approach to data protection is not as binary as it used to be. Service providers need to start considering data types, anticipated usage and relevant regulations, as well as the ability to enforce them within particular territories. This requires security to be applied more globally at a system level, becoming an embedded commodity that exploits all the new capabilities of data analytics and contextaware computing in a proactive way. Once highly technical aspects are addressed with Big Data solutions, the human side of the equation becomes predominant. Analytics and Visualization will increasingly be used to extract and manage the value hidden in huge masses of data generated by connected objects, users and smartphones, with outputs being descriptive and diagnostic to aid human decision making, and predictive to anticipate behaviors of individuals and devices (facilitating equipment monitoring and maintenance). Most importantly, prescriptive analytics have the potential to recommend actions to users and further automate business and industrial processes. New Media includes a whole spectrum of technologies associated with communication in entertainment, education and business. It addresses two key disruptions: access for all; and the ability for everyone to contribute own content and interact explicitly, including via sensors within wearable computing. At the core of data monetization resides the extraction of value that is not directly linked to the original purpose behind the data collection. This requires an ability to extract both explicit and implicit meanings aided by Semantic Technologies. Linked data and domain ontologies are the new refineries of the Economy of Data, where multiple value streams can be extracted from raw data collected for apparently unconnected purposes. Enriched data will in turn fuel the Economy of Data, closing the cycle as illustrated in Figure 6. Realization Challenges of the 3 rd Digital Revolution a process further enhanced by Innovation Value Webs operating within companies and with partners and consumers. Monetization of the new refined data offers further opportunities to create new services and platforms to meet emerging market challenges and ever rising consumer expectations. New Media Industry 4.0 Economy of Data monetize Connected Consumer Use my Data Internet of Everything usable data Privacy & Security And so the cycle is closed, but it can only function if the challenges of Privacy and Security are appropriately addressed. Analytics & Visualization interpret The 3 rd Digital Revolution gives rise to a new data lifecycle fueled by the Internet of Everything with outputs generated by device and people interactions, driven by media, industry, commerce and social interaction. Exploiting this data and interconnectivity creates real business opportunity and value, supported by interpretation through Analytics and Visualization. Semantic Technologies will enable deeper and refined insight into data: refine Semantic Technologies Figure 6. The Data Lifec-Cycle of the 3 rd Digital Revolution. Innovation Value Webs 2015 Atos 16

17 Conclusion Looking towards 2018, we can no longer constrain our thinking to that of evolution of business and technology, but instead must embrace a revolution in thinking. The interplay of the mega-trends and emerging technologies mean that businesses need to do things differently, not just better, if they are to survive. The full impact of the 3 rd Digital Revolution will only be felt when the link is made between the B2C and B2B worlds If B2C is the earthquake, [then] B2B is the tsunami that follows 6. Already in 2014 at the time this document is written, we can see a number of facets of the B2C earthquake in action; we believe that by 2018 we shall see the full consequences of the tsunami in the business. This will bring a wealth of opportunities for those that are ready to ride the wave, but could also wipe out those who are not. We are convinced that a new era of creative destruction for business the 3 rd Digital Revolution is underway. It will exhibit characteristics of both agility and fragility in its emergence and needs to be understood, respected and appropriately handled to ensure that fragility does not introduce fundamental weaknesses into the new business models created. At the same time commercial and public organizations need to adapt their thinking to fully exploit the agility that new technologies offer. Whilst a number of traditional business models face obsolescence, new value paradigms arising from ever richer contextual information will become the foundation for a whole new data and service economy. Organizations must consciously and quickly embark on digital transformation in order to avoid obsolescence and secure such new value. Openness, learning-by-doing, social innovation and strategic partnerships will be key aspects to a successful transformation. The Business Technology Innovation Center (BTIC) is a showcase of the future. BTICs serve as an inspirational environment for innovation workshops with our clients offering exclusive interaction with our Business Technologists. 6 Embrace Software as Your Brand, May 5, 2014, Forrester Research, Inc. Forum For Technology Management Leaders. 17

20 Business Drivers Economy of Data Mobility and the transformation to digital ways of working are changing our personal and business lives, forcing organizations to fundamentally rethink how they deliver and fund their operations and services. In Ascent Journey 2016, we explored how vast volumes of both structured and unstructured data can be analyzed for insights. Now, in Economy of Data (EoD), we consider how new business models are emerging, not simply for reselling data, but for creating completely new market offerings. The massive growth in personal smartphone usage and increasing prevalence of connected devices are leading to an explosion in data generation. Correctly interpreted and used, this is an enabler of the data-driven enterprise which is capable of proactive and optimized decision making and provision of enhanced and personalized Connected Consumer experiences. An EoD organization is one that understands that data can provide more than mere insight into market trends when multiple sources of data are combined and refined, they can unlock access to new markets and revenue streams. Such an organization will target potential users and providers of data to form a multi-sided market, building partner, customer SIDE 1 SIDE 2 and supplier ecosystems and establishing shared data asset platforms to be used by the participating players. Value Creation At a basic level, value creation within the platform comes from the act of sharing data that offers benefit to multiple parties (the direct approach ). Data may be exchanged in its raw state or refined and combined with additional OpenData sources participating parties extract the value for their business context. At a more sophisticated level, data semantics can be used to exploit feedback data from participants engaging in the direct approach to extract further value and meaning. This new insight and value is then shared through the platform (the indirect approach ). An EoD system can drive business benefit in two ways: 1. Access to a larger market, where the different sides are (within limits) mutually reinforcing i.e. growth in one side of the market can drive additional insights that enable growth in the other. Price 2. Increased profitability is enabled by market operating costs being shared between the participating members (not necessarily equitably) and the potential to command higher prices because of perceived increased value of services enriched by the shared data insights. The potential value both real and perceived that is enabled through EoD partnerships means that a competitor who builds their strategy on traditional theory is likely to fail against a multi-sided market player. At the heart of multi-sided business models is the principle of indirect network effect : Whether through value generation or mere participation on one side of the market, the other side will tend to value the service more highly and vice versa. A successful platform uses this mutually reinforcing network effect to increase the overall value of the system. Platforms in the early stages of the product lifecycle face a chicken-and-egg problem they can deliver value to one side only if there are sufficient participants on the other side. Furthermore if potential consumers believe that few people will participate in the platform, then they themselves may prefer not to participate. Platforms that initially seek high profit margins on both sides have little chance to survive the inception phase. Platform Figure 7a. Market Side 1 and Atos Figure 7b. Value Creation of Side 1 and 2. Quantity 2015 Atos A well-designed pricing policy can help solve this problem. Subsidizing prices can encourage participation on one side of a market and thanks to the indirect network effect, can also increase participation on the other as shown in Figure 8 (Stage 1). A tipping point is reached when the overall volume of engaged consumers makes the platform attractive without subsidy (Stage 2). 20

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